


zero-sum game

by thir13enth



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes
Genre: Book 3 centric, Gen, basically that moment when alfonse becomes líf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27494977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth
Summary: it’s basic math, alfonse. one life for another. doesn’t get any more simple than that.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15
Collections: Fire Emblem Writer's Zine





	zero-sum game

**Author's Note:**

> written for [FE Writer's Zine](https://twitter.com/fewriterszine)! incredible team and incredible people to work with. read all the other writing!!! honestly glad to write this piece because if we're talking real, i did not heed any narrative line in fire emblem heroes until that oh-shit moment, after which i could not keep my brain off
> 
> there's also lovely art to this piece, which you can find [here](https://twitter.com/mythiicat/status/1324020540256874496?s=20)

“Other realms?”

Hel smiles, like a mother who has finally taught her child to add two and two. “Yes, Alfonse. _Other_ realms,” she tells him. “But you didn’t know that other realms existed, did you?”

He furrows his eyebrows. “Yes, I do,” he says, reflexively defensive — as if there is actually still pride left in him. “I _do_ know. Where all the other Heroes come from? That’s what you mean, don’t you? Other realms that the other Heroes come from? Their worlds and their people?”

She chuckles, leaning back into her throne. “Child,” she hums. “When I say other realms, I truly mean _other_ realms. Not simply ones you’ve discovered through Breidablik. I mean _whole_ worlds identical to your own. Alternate worlds that also have an Askr, an Embla, a Zenith — _complete_ worlds with their own Kiran and Anna, their own Fjorm and Veronica, their own Alfonse and _Sharena_.”

Her name shudders through Alfonse’s mind.

Hel must see something in his eyes crack, because her smile grows wider. “Of course, _your_ Sharena here is gone, but there are hundreds, thousands of other Sharenas out there.” She drums her fingers at the end of the armrest, leaning forward. “You miss her, don’t you?” she asks, her voice low, bridled, manipulative — predatory.

He doesn’t answer, but his jaw tightens and his throat closes as he swallows.

Hel coolly watches him. “Of course you miss her,” she says. “And fortunately for you, if you do my bidding, you’ll see her again soon enough.”

“Your bidding?”

“You _do_ know who I am, don’t you?” She looks at him for another moment. “Remind yourself, why don’t you?”

“Hel,” he says, in a soft sputter. He recites it like the alphabet. “You rule the Realm of the Dead.”

“Correct,” she replies. “And that means I can take life as easily as I can return it. Do you know what that means?”

He can tell that she knows he doesn’t know. This is a question that Hel will answer for him. He shakes his head, hesitating. “No… I don’t,” he says, nevertheless giving her the response she wants.

“That means you haven’t lost yet,” she says. “That means that you can still do something for your world. Something _good_.”

The word catches his attention. “Good?” he repeats, voice choked.

“Yes,” she affirms, with another smile. Her hand reaches toward him, cupping his chin. He flinches at her cold touch, her bony fingers. “Something _good_.”

“Like what?”

“You will be my General,” she declares, her charcoal eyes sparkling. “You will bring me dead, and I will grant you life.”

“How?”

She breaks into full laughter. “What do you mean _how_? Oh, child, listen to yourself! How will you bring me dead, you ask? Why you have to _kill_ , of course!”

His eyes widen. “N-No,” he stammers. “No!”

“Oh, please,” she says, withdrawing her hand. She sits back, crossing one leg over another. “This isn’t killing in the way you know it. Have you already forgotten what I just told you about the other realms? Everyone you know is _already_ dead. You would only be killing their _other_ versions in their _other_ worlds.”

She drums her fingers against the armrest of the throne again — there’s an off-note percussion, and she scowls, briefly glancing at her nails before meeting Alfonse’s eyes again.

She lets out an exasperated sigh. “There’s a balance I must maintain, you know,” she tells him. “As much as I would like to help you restore your world, I cannot disrupt the equilibrium between life and death.” She offers him a small smile. “But I’ve taken a liking to you, Alfonse. You have the potential to do great things. And I should like to help you.” She uncrosses and recrosses her legs in the opposite direction. “So,” she says, continuing. “If I were to restore a life for your world, I need a life to replace it.” She pauses here. “I’m sure you know what that means, right?”

He can’t make the words out. He only nods.

“I will give you the power to traverse worlds so that you can do your good,” she pronounces. Her eyes flicker down to the hilt of his sword. “And I will gift you a stronger weapon,” she adds, before meeting his eyes again. “What do you say?”

Four heartbeats before he answers.

“Yes,” he murmurs. He can barely hear himself.

Hel cocks her head to the side. “Yes?”

“Yes,” he repeats, voice stronger this time. “Yes.”

She smiles. “Good,” she says, and leans back into her throne.

Hel looks so incredibly small then, her cachectic body swallowed up in the magnitude of her chair. She looks so weak, so frail — there is a brief moment where Alfonse wonders if he can kill _her_ right then and there. That perhaps there _is_ a way to defeat her.

But it’s only a moment’s thought. Because now — in front of his sister’s murderer, in front of she who destroyed his _entire_ world at the snap of her fingers, in front of she who has now capitalized his remorse and manipulated it against him — Alfonse doubts the solution is truly that simple.

He’s made this mistake before. He was brash and reckless. He used The Heart’s Rite, and the heart consumed his world.

He cannot do that again.

Yes, he’s already told her. Yes.

He will be her reaper. He will be her right hand.

He has nothing else to lose.

This is his duty. This is his punishment.

He kneels then, and she takes what little humanity he has left in him — translates his heartbeat for her glory, his strength for her regale, his will for her decree.

She transforms him, and it is painful. And after seven days of agony, his sword now brandishes a violet glow, and his body is consumed by age and desperation. He now adorns new armor, and the insignia of Hel is branded on his skin.

“Go on,” she encourages him, her hand on his shoulder. “Use your new power.”

And so, on her command, he lifts his arm up, casting into the space in front of him. A portal ripples out before him — and in its clear mirror surface, he sees his reflection.

He barely recognizes it.

He is emaciated, hollow — only the crackling of blue ethereal light within his black ribs. His face is sunken, wasted — half-fallen apart and decaying. Where his smile once was, now a silent mask. His eyes are old, tired — bloodshot and jaded.

He looks nothing like himself.

He doesn’t mind. He doesn’t want to.

He is dead, he reminds himself. He is no longer Alfonse, he reminds himself. Alfonse is dead.

He will take on a new name. His new name is —

_Líf._

Líf? The first king of Askr? Why does that name come to mind? He’s already discarded himself, husked off his past — why is there anything left of himself in there? Why the fuck does he still carry memories of who he used to be — the proud, arrogant, rash son of a kingdom he once loved and cared for so deeply. A lineage of great protectors and defenders that ended with his damned name.

He cannot carry the name of the First.

He thinks this, but then he realizes: If he actually cares, then he is _still_ who he used to be.

And that thought revolts him even more.

“Well?” Hel asks him, interrupting his mind. She drums her fingers against his shoulder, and gestures in front of him toward the portal with her other hand. “Go on, Alfonse.”

“Líf,” he corrects, bristling.

“Ah,” she replies, with an amused lilt. “Líf, then.”

He strides into the portal then, with the confidence of naivety.

This is also painful. His bones groan as time and space fold his body. His skin burns as he twists through dimensions.

When he emerges, nausea overwhelms him. He collapses onto all fours — hurls — and picks himself up as soon as his stomach empties. His head pounds as he rises, shaking out the wobble in his stance.

He must grow accustomed to this.

He steps forward, his boots meeting the soft resistance of fresh grass and damp soil. Surprised, he looks down, seeing lush green.

It must have been centuries since he’s set foot on anything more than brittle gravel and dust and sand. The smell of after-rain and young spring flowers is exactly how he remembers —

Askr.

This truly is Askr, isn’t it? This is what _his_ Askr used to be.

And maybe just for a moment, his undead heart beats once. Maybe just for a moment, there’s a pang of doubt that makes him wonder if he wants to see another one of his domains fall and burn in front of his eyes again. Maybe just for a moment, he thinks that he’s still Alfonse, the worthy heir apparent of his kingdom.

_Worthy?_

No — he reminds himself, and at the corner of his eye, he sees a flash of movement.

Instinctively, he draws his sword and hurls its blade at the blur. Something cracks, something whines, and when his vision catches up to his reflex, he sees streaks of red blood and black dirt over glistening white fur.

A rabbit, he realizes.

Gingerly, he picks it up. Warmth flows over his fingers, out from where he’s cut through the skin, muscle, bone of the creature’s body. Still one piece — it is only held together by thread of flesh, stretched out by the weight of its hanging remains. He turns its head with his thumb, and he faces its pink eyes.

A dead rabbit.

That wasn’t difficult, he thinks. It won’t be any easier than this, he thinks.

He swallows thickly, holding down a cough from the heavy smell of iron, tossing the corpse into the evergreen behind him. He hears the rustle as it falls into the brush, a rustle when it lands, never to rise again.

He looks down at his hand — soiled, viscid, drenched.

One life gone here, one life restored there. One he takes here, one he is returned there.

The math is as simple as adding two and two.

This is his duty, he reminds himself. This is his punish—

No, this is his _chance_. This is his _right_.

Blood still wet on his fingers, he takes the hilt of his sword, unsheathing it once more.

Now, again.

**Author's Note:**

> you know my internet address: [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/napsbeforesleep)


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